Swammerdami
Squadron Leader
It is a dogma of linguistics that "all languages are equally complex," but have different ways of being complex. For example, English lacks the inflections of French, but has complexity in the form of phrasal verbs ("look up" = research, "look out" = beware, "give up" = accept defeat, "come across" = encounter) and other idioms that must be memorized ("by yourself", "in person"). Some languages have weirdnesses like evidential markers (though one of those, 
Eastern Pomo language, seems complex in other ways as well).
I am NOT a linguist (though some of the topics intrigue me enough that by now I've read dozens of books or papers), and only know three languages (English, French, Thai). But I just do NOT see how Thai can be called "complex." We have 2 or 3 linguists here and I hope they can show me what I'm missing. Or refer my question to a linguists' message-board.
(I know ZERO Chinese but have the impression its similarities to Thai may make it an exception also.)
I do feel that I know Thai well enough to point to what might be considered complexities:
Thai has no obligatory markers for tense, number, gender. Even the non-obligatory markers are ambiguous. A word for 'already' and a verb for 'to obtain' are perhaps the most common past-tense markers, but the latter is also used to mean 'to be able to.'
What am I missing? Surely professional linguists are well aware of Thai; in what way can it uphold the meme (which linguists seem to treat almost as an axiom) that "all languages are equally complex"?
To the contrary, the language is so simple that ordinary conversations are often full of ambiguity. I've witnessed examples of this as a bystander. Sometimes what would be a single statement in English necessitates extra turns. For example the English statement "We're going to see a movie" might become "Go see movie"; "Go already?"; "No, we go afternoon."
Eastern Pomo language, seems complex in other ways as well).I am NOT a linguist (though some of the topics intrigue me enough that by now I've read dozens of books or papers), and only know three languages (English, French, Thai). But I just do NOT see how Thai can be called "complex." We have 2 or 3 linguists here and I hope they can show me what I'm missing. Or refer my question to a linguists' message-board.
(I know ZERO Chinese but have the impression its similarities to Thai may make it an exception also.)
I do feel that I know Thai well enough to point to what might be considered complexities:
- The written language. Thai has about 65 writing symbols compared with English's 26. And it has weirdnesses: 'TR' becomes an 'S' sound, and 'RR' becomes a schwa! But I think linguists and this complexity meme are focused solely on the spoken language, right?
- Classifiers. English also has special words to deal with "uncountable" nouns: heads of cattle or lettuce, etc. The fact that ALL nouns in Thai are treated, in a sense, as "uncountable" is almost a simplification.
- Pronouns. Thai uses a variety of pronouns depending on social status or personal relationship. But, like English, it also often uses ordinary words ("Sarge," "Doctor," "Dad") when a pronoun might be used.
- Consecutive verbs. I've previously posted an example Thai sentence of 13 words: 1 pronoun followed by 12 verbs! Again, this seems like simplification. One could construct such a sentence in English but connectors like "and," "to," etc. would be needed.
- Sentence-ending particles. Thais often end a sentence with a syllable or two showing mood or status. English does this also: "Sir", "hmmm."
- Tones. Again, English also uses tones, but in a more complex way. "Isn't she pretty" has different meanings depending on where the high-tone is placed.
Thai has no obligatory markers for tense, number, gender. Even the non-obligatory markers are ambiguous. A word for 'already' and a verb for 'to obtain' are perhaps the most common past-tense markers, but the latter is also used to mean 'to be able to.'
What am I missing? Surely professional linguists are well aware of Thai; in what way can it uphold the meme (which linguists seem to treat almost as an axiom) that "all languages are equally complex"?
To the contrary, the language is so simple that ordinary conversations are often full of ambiguity. I've witnessed examples of this as a bystander. Sometimes what would be a single statement in English necessitates extra turns. For example the English statement "We're going to see a movie" might become "Go see movie"; "Go already?"; "No, we go afternoon."